NATO insiders suspect staged Turkey coup

SUSPECTED: A majority view within NATO is that it is highly likely that president of Turkey, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, staged the failed coup against himself as a pretext for starting a purge against his critics and opponents. Photo: GOVERNMENT OF TURKEY

The dominant assessment in NATO is clear: Turkey’s President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan staged the coup against himself.

Senior NATO sources tell aldrimer.no that they believe Erdoğan staged the coup himself. However, they stress that there is no written NATO documentation for that claim, because it is simply too sensitive. That’s because all member nation’s have the right to access to all intelligence information gathered by the alliance.

1,600 names

But the dominant NATO assessment is quite clear.

“The senior officers, three- and four-star generals, and those who worked with Turkey for 30-40 years and who mentored Turkish officers for four or five years, say they do not believe that there was a coup. If the Turkish Armed Forces wanted to carry out a coup, they would have succeeded. That’s a tradition in Turkey,” said a NATO source, without a hint of irony.

“They had a list of 1,600 names the very next day of people they wanted gone,” he added.

Tanks and warplanes

On Friday, 15 July 2016 Turkish tanks rolled into the streets in Ankara and Istanbul. Two bridges over the Bosporus Strait were closed. Fighter planes also took off in Ankara, where Parliament and the presidential palace were attacked.

Turkey’s President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan was on holiday in Marmaris, in southern Turkey, but travelled that nigtht to Istanbul by private jet.

The very next morning, reports from Turkey said the coup had been foiled. A systematic and comprehensive purge of military officers, judges and others in the Turkish power apparatus started immediately.

A year of preparation

Some 80-90 per cent of Turkish officers who served in NATO were relieved of their posts, aldrimer.no has learned from reliable sources. Many of those who dared to return home were jailed and a significant number were killed, according to NATO sources.

“Turkish officers who still have contact with NATO said that Erdogan had been planning the so-called coup for a year and had a list of people he wanted out.” said a NATO source. “I have so far not met anyone who believes there was a real coup attempt,” said the source.

2 replies

Great post, Fada. This is one of those stories that one doesn’t often see in the mainstream media, but which has a high degree of plausibility. Really an interesting story. Good job.

I have long suspected that many of the so-called “terrorist” attacks in Turkey were staged by the Erdogan regime. For one thing, these attacks have more often than not targeted either Kurds or have been blamed on the PKK or ISIS. And there is a more than just a little circumstantial evidence that the Turkish regime has cooperated with ISIS against Kurdish forces in Syria. Something just doesn’t add up.